The World Health Organization (WHO) reported in June, 2022 that in 2019 one in every eight people around the world was living with some form of mental disorder, with the most common being anxiety and depression. They then found that those numbers increased by 26%  for anxiety and 28% for depression during 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, Adrianna Rodriquez in an article in USA Today refers to a Harvard survey conducted in 2020 that found 61% of adults aged 18-25 reported feeling serious loneliness.

With these findings, it is not surprising that suicide rates in the United States reached an all-time high in 2022 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But perhaps it is surprising that the suicide rate grew higher and higher as the age of people increased, with 10,433 people above 65 years old reported to have taken their own life in that year.

The development of anxiety and depression is most commonly related to the stressful situations people encounter. Facing a demanding or worrisome situation we cannot control or do not understand is often the beginning point. Couple that with a sense of isolation and our sense of endangerment and helplessness increases rapidly.

A variety of factors are feeding this increasing sense of despair. With the emergence of Covid-19 people were suddenly forced to face their own mortality. Many people did not deal well with that. The world-wide economic downturn and rising inflation that followed the pandemic pushed many people into financial panic. In fact, one study found that more than half of the U.S. population lives paycheck to paycheck with even some people earning more than $250,000 per year also living paycheck to paycheck.

Charolette Huff, in a paper published in the November 2022 issue of Monitor on Psychology, reported that more than half of adults in the U.S. often or sometimes get their news from various forms of social media. She indicates this is adding to the perceived stresses in life because the incessant drive in the news media to attract clickers leads to an overemphasis of the sensational and threatening news. Her article referred to relatively new terms such as, “media saturation overload”, “doomscrolling”, “headline anxiety”, and “headline stress disorder”. Do people find themselves developing anxiety and even depression as they wait for the next piece of bad news? Probably so.

Another factor seems to be the ongoing transition from modern to postmodern thinking. Modern thinking emphasized the rational approach to things, with an emphasis on the laws of science. That way of thinking and reasoning was based on the search for and belief in the existence of absolute truth.

Postmodern thinking abandoned the foundation of absolute truth and moral stability and replaced it with the concept that nothing is always right or wrong and everything is relative. Britannica magazine in an article updated January 5, 2024 says, “Postmodernism is a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power.”

As a result, in the current common thinking, there is no universal standard of morality. Rather, each culture, or even each individual, determines what is right or wrong in any given situation. So, if someone’s progress is hindered as they drive down the road, road rage breaks out and sometimes even leads to killing. Or, if a store has what a group of people want or has what they can exchange for what they want, that group may invade the store and take out all they can carry. If you are a prominent person and your political or moral beliefs are expressed publicly, you may be attacked verbally or even threatened with physical harm or death.

The foundational concepts that gave a modicum of stability to life have been destroyed. As a result, things that were considered unthinkable not long ago are now happening frequently. For example, children are being led into questioning their own gender and some are being urged to undergo hormone therapy or even surgery that alters the physical aspects of gender. Teens and adults are surprised and offended if they are brought into a court of justice when they break the laws. People want to be free to impose consequences on other people but are unwilling to accept consequences for their own behavior. Some areas are experiencing the effects of a push to defund the police. Physical attacks and random killings are happening with increasing frequency.

Once we decide as a people that there are no boundaries to our individual or group behavior we are left with confusion and fear. We begin to question the purpose of life and its focus. Trust in other people fades. Radical groups based on common ideologies form and the ability to compromise for the benefit of the general good disappears.  Churches begin to be characterized by their ideology rather than their theology and spirituality. Political groups move further and further away from the center. Bipartisanship becomes rare.

Reversing these trends will require individuals to refocus and find a place in their lives that provides mental and emotional security. This will need to include a revised sense of purpose for living.

God offers us a way of life that brings peace instead of turmoil and confidence rather than hopelessness. He created us so that we could have a relationship with him. We are designed with what J. B. Phillips called “a God shaped blank” in our hearts. Life is good only when we properly fill that blank space.

A long time ago, one of the biblical psalmists pointed us to the life that will be satisfying and meaningful. Because God designed us with a dual nature, physical and spiritual, we need to incorporate aspects of both natures in our lives in order to move beyond a primarily animal like existence. The life that results in happiness and contentment begins with a relationship with God and adherence to his guidelines for life.

How happy is the one who does not
walk in the advice of the wicked
or stand in the pathway with sinners
or sit in the company of mockers!

Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction,
and he meditates on it day and night.
He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams
that bears its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

The wicked are not like this;
instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand up in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.

Psalm 1